Project description:Food waste is a major source of environmental pollution, as its landfills attribute to greenhouse gas emissions. This study developed a robust upcycling bioprocess that converts food waste into lactic acid through autochthonous fermentation and further produces biodegradable polymer polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). Food can be stored without affecting its bioconversion to lactic acid, making it feasible for industrial application. Mapping autochthonous microbiota in the food waste fermentation before and after storage revealed lactic-acid-producing microorganisms dominate during the indigenous fermentation. Furthermore, through global transcriptomic and gene set enrichment analyses, it was discovered that coupling lactic acid as carbon source with ammonium sulfate as nitrogen source in Cupriavidus necator culture upregulates pathways, including PHB biosynthesis, CO2 fixation, carbon metabolism, pyruvate metabolism, and energy metabolism compared to pairing with ammonium nitrate. There was ∼90 % PHB content in the biomass. Overall, the study provides crucial insights into establishing a bioprocess for food waste repurposing.
Project description:Manufacturing adulteration is the major cause of discrepancies between the declared and actual composition of food products. The use of high-throughput sequencing of DNA barcodes is a promising method to identify adulterants, but is not yet widely used in practice. Food pre-processing and differences in GC composition can lead to unequal amplification or complete loss of DNA barcode components, so the results of genomic analysis require an independent confirmation method. Perhaps the most promising way to increase the accuracy of food ingredient identification is to use an orthogonal method based on very different physical principles than DNA sequencing, which involves the analysis of other plant cell components, to verify the results of HTS analysis. In this work, we decided to evaluate the suitability of a multi-omic approach, including coupled DNA barcode HTS analysis and proteomic analysis, to estimate food fraud in herbal beverages. To resolve disputed discordant results obtained during genomic and proteomic investigation of samples, we used traditional botanical morphology method. Among the samples studied, the combined approach revealed two adulterations of Epilobium with Lythrum, which could be dangerous for the unsuspecting consumer.